Hello everyone! This past weekend my mom brought my passport up to me and I figured I'd share it because it's neat and I've never had one before. My forms are getting done at a good rate as well, I have only a few more to go. I mailed one of them the other day with USPS and it recommended against it, so I just hope that it gets there on time. I'll be sure to mail the more important ones with UPS as it suggests, I guess I just didn't want to spend an absurd amount on shipping. Hopefully I don't regret it later.
*EDIT* Fine, haha, now is everyone alright with it >_< And it is hard to unpixelize images, actually quite impossible with how coarse I made the pixels, haha. Oh well. $5 goes to the person who can unscramble the black boxes, haha.
Cool, yeah? Anyway, next on my agenda is to fill out the housing form and look into applying for my Visa. I'll keep you posted when the time comes or anything else comes up!
My Japanese Experience
こんにちは 『konnichiwa』! That means hello in Japanese, and well, hello and welcome to my blog. The purpose of this blog is to let everyone share in my experience of studying abroad in the Land of the Rising Sun. At this point in time I'm still in the States and will be until the last week of March, but it's never too early to start blogging, yeah?
Just yesterday I handed in my Intent to Enroll to the Institute for the International Education of Students for their Spring 2009 Cultural Tokyo program. I was waiting to hear back from 明治学院大学 『Meiji Gakuin University』 but the deadline for IES was fast approaching, and one program is better than the possibility of no program. And anyway, a semester in Japan isn't something that most people can say they have experienced.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Study Abroad Programs, or even for those who are who just want to know the specifics of mine, here's a brief summary. I'll be spending a Spring Semester (in Japan this is April --> July) in Tokyo, enrolling in courses at Kanda University as well as IES Abroad. Among these courses will be an intensive Japanese Language course as well as 3 or 4 other courses ranging from Popular Culture to History to Japanese Marketing Techniques. While the courses may be taught in English, the location will very much be Japan, as field studies will be done in various locations around Tokyo, and the people of Tokyo speak Japanese. Granted, English is a commonly studied language there, but certainly not the dominant or native one. For more information on the program and it's official site, click here.
At this point I'm just filling out what seems to be an endless amount of forms, so there isn't anything all that interesting to share. I just figured I'd let everyone know that as of now I am going to spend a semester in Tokyo, Japan from April to July. When the program does start, expect a plethora of photos from my adventures as well as daily / weekly blog entries.
Feel free to spread the word of my blog and let any and everyone that might be interested know about it as well. Anyone that is interested can contact me at damian.larue@rochester.edu with any questions or just general chat.
Well, じゃまた 『Ja mata』, which means see you later. When anything comes up I'll be sure to post it here. There is a way to subscribe to this blog, I believe you click the orange thing to the left, but I've never tried before myself, so if that doesn't work let me know.
~ Damian